The co-production between Live and the Open Clasp theatre company made its debut at the theatre, has since toured to London and now, following its May stint at the Soho Theatre, it’s back on tour with a stop-off back here where it is having a brief run until Saturday.

And during Wednesday night’s preview you could have heard a pin drop as the audience listened to the accounts of the women whose lives are blighted by the same man: James.

Christina Berriman Dawson plays the wife, whose personality and health have taken an emotional and physical battering over 12 years of married life, and Eilidh Talman is the later partner who now bears the brunt of James’ controlling behaviour.

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It’s all cleverly done, with both actresses doubling as James during re-enactments of each other’s experiences, which increasingly have us uneasy and on edge as we wait to see how he will react at minor perceived transgressions.

And it’s testament to their acting skills that, for instance, we know Talman has turned into the manipulative, threatening James even before she adopts the manly body language or opens her mouth. The sudden change, and look, is like flicking on a switch.

Just as scary is how Berriman’s wife and mother is reduced to a nervous wreck at the sound of James’ approach.

At other times, as they share parallel experiences, the women speak in unison.

And the tone is set at a dinner table routine at the start, as both women replicate movements of napkins and glasses - creating the shared soundtrack to their lives at the same time - while their experiences echo each other’s, just as they both saw a very different side of James at the carbon-copy rosy start we see to their relationships.

With a simple boxed-in set concentrating our focus, the gradual wearing down of the women’s identity makes for increasingly uncomfortable viewing and so submerged do the women’s personalities become that we struggle to remember if we actually know their names.

While the long-suffering wife is the first to take stock, the ending - which I don’t want to spoil - is not all to our liking.

Written by Catrina McHugh, the drama examines all aspects of domestic abuse: not just the cruelty and intimidation but the associated feelings of low self-worth and blame as well as the question of court orders and the lack of insight from those outside the home as James manages to pull the wool over the eyes of all.

It was apparently created, with funding, to help train police officers on how to deal with domestic violence cases - and the result proves an eye-opener for everyone.